‘The Divisional Court in R (Chidlow) v HM Senior Coroner for Blackpool [2019] EWHC 581 has given a concise and authoritative judgment reiterating and summarising the current common law concerning causation in inquests. Given the ever increasing importance of inquests and their conclusions as preliminaries to civil litigation, as well the growing number of inquests being held into historical deaths, the judgment will doubtless be frequently cited over the coming months and years.’

‘Rory Thomson, a senior associate in the disputes team at CMS, comments on the judgment of the UK Supreme Court in the case of Perry v Raleys Solicitors, which was handed down on 13 February 2019. The judgment is a useful affirmation and clarification of the law on the assessment of causation and loss in professional negligence cases.’

‘Considers liability and damages where the appellant solicitor negligently failed to advise a client of a potential claim against a third party. Held: allowing the appeal, loss of chance damages have been developed by the courts to deal with the difficulties arising from the assessment of counter-factual and future events. In both types of situation, the courts at times depart from the ordinary burden on a claimant to prove the facts required for a successful claim on the balance of probabilities. However, this does not mean that the basic requirement that a negligence claim requires proof that loss has been caused by the breach of duty is abandoned. Applying this approach, the respondent needed to prove that, properly advised, he would have made a claim within time. Further, the judge was correct to impose the additional requirement of the claim having to be an honest claim.’

‘Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on solicitors’ professional negligence is good news for both law firms and their insurers, and should stem the flow of claims about the under-settlement of personal injury claims, experts have said.’

‘From our perspective, the first step should be to understand how competent medical professionals protect the patient against the risk of VTE. One starting point is to understand the control of VTE risk in patients admitted to hospital, although of course other primary care providers (GPs) have a corresponding duty to be alert to the risk of VTE within their practice.’

‘A ship owner who sold a vessel after a charterer breached its contract, making more money than it would have done selling the ship at the end of the breached contract, does not have to offset that difference in value against its claim for loss of earnings, the Supreme Court has ruled.’

‘In EXP v Barker, the trial judge and Court of Appeal were faced with an unusual situation. An expert witness – although undoubtedly skilled and experienced in his field – had omitted to mention a close personal connection to the party instructing him.’

‘When does temporary accommodation become settled so as to break the chain of causation of intentional homelessness? The appeal in Huda v LB Redbridge [2016] EWCA Civ 709 concerned a homeless applicant and his family, who were effectively forgotten about by the council following a final decision on their application.’

‘The claimants alleged that the excavation of lakes by the defendants on the defendants’ land, and the abstraction of underground water as a result, had adversely affected the claimants’ fishery, in particular the water levels in the ponds therein. They issued a claim against the defendants, inter alia, under section 48A of the Water Resources Act 1991, seeking damages for the loss of fish from the ponds, the loss of income from the fishery, the costs of remediating the ponds, expenses incurred and for loss of amenity. The defendants denied liability on the basis that, under section 48A, they could only be liable for loss or damage caused by the abstraction which could reasonably have been foreseen by them and that, in any event, the claimants had failed to prove on the balance of probabilities that the defendants’ abstraction of water by the excavation of the lakes was the effective cause of the claimants’ alleged loss or damage.’

‘Six months ago I discussed at some length the issues arising from the decision of the Supreme Court in Jackson v Murray [2015] PIQR P249. More recently in Sabir v Osei-Kwabena [2016] PIQR Q56, the problem cropped up again, this time in the Court of Appeal.’

‘The claimant suffered a head injury and was taken to a hospital managed by the defendant. A CT scan was performed some six hours after his admission and he was transferred to another hospital where he underwent surgery. He was left with cognitive and neuropsychological deficits. He claimed damages in negligence against the defendant contending, inter alia, that the defendant’s negligent delay in undertaking the CT scan had resulted in a period of raised intra-cranial pressure which had caused or materially contributed to his brain damage. The defendant contended that only if the claimant could establish that damaging raised intra-cranial pressure caused by the defendant’s negligence had caused his brain injury that, applying the classic “but for” test of causation, he could recover as against the defendant, and that it was insufficient to establish “material contribution”.’

‘A High Court judge “overcomplicated matters” by attempting to develop a set of principles governing whether the innocent party to a breach of contract should have its award of damages reduced to reflect a benefit it obtained from that breach of contract, an expert has said.’

‘In Wellesley Partners LLP v Withers LLP [2015] EWCA Civ 1146 the Court of Appeal made an important change to the law of causation. From now onwards, the contractual approach causation shall apply instead of the tortious principles of remoteness in cases of concurrent liability. The effect of this case will be to materially change causation analyses in professional negligence matters, albeit the conclusion (as demonstrated in the Wellesley case itself) through the two analytical frameworks may well be identical.’

‘The High Court has dismissed a claim against a firm of solicitors, despite finding it negligent in failing to raise the absence of a covenant in restraint of competition during the purchase of a commercial property.’

‘Where a claimant’s injury had two separate causes, one of which was his own criminal conduct in a joint enterprise with another, amounting to turpitude for the purposes of the defence of ex turpi causa, and one of which was a third party’s negligence, the relationship between the claimant’s turpitude and his negligence claim against the third party was not such as to debar his claim against the defendant in reliance on the principle of ex turpi causa. The correct approach of the court in such cases was to give effect to both causes of the injury by allowing the claimant to claim in negligence against the third party but, if negligence was established, by reducing any recoverable damages in accordance with the principles of contributory negligence so as to reflect the claimant’s own fault and responsibility for the injury.’

‘Claims involving multiple defendants are often complex in terms of the facts, the law and the expert medical evidence. They are claims that we all have some experience of, and the issues involved have no doubt troubled us all to a greater or lesser degree at times.’